First thing in the morning, before I look at my phone or make the coffee, I step out onto my deck to talk to my vegetable plants.  I think they like it.  Or maybe I want to think that they like . In any rate, I like it.  I check for flowers and fruit.  I come back in with that faint tomato perfume and sometimes my fingers are green from pinching suckers or pruning herbs.

It's not the only time I commune with them.  Usually, I water in the late afternoon/early evening.  Yesterday, I sat down in front of my Purple Cherokee tomato plant and thoroughly examined her.  She has had lots and lots of flowers for a little while now.  I was getting concerned that I wasn't seeing any fruit. Not worried anymore!

There is actually at least one other one, too.

My pepper plant was the first of my veggies to produce.  There are now 3 peppers.

That's the biggest one.  

You can see at least one more here.  There really are three, though.  There is also a sticky, white something on this plant.  Any idea what it is?  Thank goodness I have access to the webernet to find answers to my gardening queries.

My grape tomato plant is a trooper!  She has much fruit and more flowers!

My Roma and Brandywine plants have lots of flowers, but no fruit yet.  S'okay...flowers mean fruit.

The most interesting part of the jungle this year is my cucumbers!

Again, no flowers or fruit yet, but I am "training" them (there are 4 plants) to climb this "trellis" that my dad and I built. 

This is actually my second go at the cucumber plants.  Mom and Dad came at the beginning of May, before our frost free date.  As usual, they (Dad) planted my deck garden for me.  It was too early for the cukes...got too cold at nights and they died.

 

Another fun thing in my jungle is my herb garden.

A few years ago, my father-in-law built me a stair tread planter.  It is literally stair treads purchased at your local home improvement store.  We rotated it 90 degrees so that the "step" became the riser to better accommodate the planter boxes and make a smaller footprint on the deck.  This year, my dad made some repairs, stained, and replaced the planter boxes.   

This is the first of many "jungle" posts this year.  Stay tuned.

Today is Wednesday and DateNight is this evening.  That post will be on Friday, though there will be pictures on Instagram tonight.

This is what's growing in my garden.  How about yours?